Conversation Piece, October 1, 2017

A weekly series.

Gloria in Hefnerland. Love him or hate him, the late Hugh Hefner created an enduring silhouette with his nip-waisted Playboy bunnies. In her 1963 essay “A Bunny’s Tale,” for Show magazine, Gloria Steinem delved inside what Playboy Enterprises called “the glamorous and exciting world” of the “most envied girls in America,” and came out with intel on how the women achieved that hourglass look (pain and padding are involved). Follow her down the rabbit hole, here.

Colour theory: Have you ever wondered why humans seem to all identify colours similarly? Maybe we all process the irreducible quanta of light on a continuous spectrum of wavelengths that gives the world its hues in the same way, or perhaps my red is not your red, after all. Dig into how the machinery of human perception and cognition works with Wired, here.
Into the woods: Allemansrätten is a romantic Swedish concept, written into law, that translates roughly as “everyone’s right to roam freely”. Now, the Swedes are extending the allemansrätten concept beyond their borders: five stressed-out workaholics from around Europe are invited to stay in light-filled cabins on Henriksholm Island in Sweden’s west. For three days, they will hike, swim, fish, and cook in a kind of immersive nature therapy. Researchers from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute will study whether the visitors experience any health or well-being benefits from the combination of nature and solitude. Sign us up. Learn more here.
Pass the injera: When was the last time you went out for Ghanaian or Senegalese food? For the most part, these foods are not considered mainstream in the West, but African cuisines that aren’t well-known or don’t have a large immigration group are finding appreciation in the realm of haute cuisine, with upscale restaurants increasingly drawing from their flavours and style to appeal to Western tastes, as well as flourishing (on the other side of the spectrum) in street food culture. Learn more about your future favourite cuisines from Quartz, here.